Chapter 3 - Accidents & Acceptance
Harry almost bit his tongue to hide a yelp as a spider crawled over his feet. The strange sensation sent shivers over his skin. In the near eternal darkness of his cupboard, he couldn't see the creepy crawler scurrying along. In fact, if Harry was being honest, he couldn't see anything at all. Even his own hands, unless he brought them right to his face.
The cupboard had been his room for as long as he could remember. An early memory phased through his mind—of being chucked in the dingy crawl-space beneath the stairs as a punishment. A punishment for what he couldn't remember. And ever since that day, Harry hadn't known any different.
Dust coated almost every surface of the cupboard—but this wasn't regular dust. This dust was thicker than the glue they used in arts and crafts class, and looked like candy floss mixed with concrete. Tasted and smelled yucky, though, a fact that Harry had come into contact with far too often every time Dudley ran down the stairs.
Beyond the cupboard, laughter and the clinking of glasses sliced through the stillness. A reminder that Harry was excluded from celebrating Vernon Dursley's fourty-first birthday. Not that he wanted to celebrate his uncle's special day.
A bit of cake would've been nice though. A chocolate frosting, sumptuous at the edges, with sprinkles and flakes that crunched ever so slightly upon chewing. The actual cake would feature icing between two layers, a sweetness to be relished, and perhaps a strawberry on top to finish things off.
Of course, dreams rarely became reality for Harry Potter, if ever. Rather than being scared of a monster under the bed, Harry was the monster under the stairs. And a pretty nifty monster at that, given all the chores he was forced by his relatives to complete.
After Dudley had broken Harry's secret in four, Harry hadn't spoken a single word to anyone. All that flashed through his mind, like a mantra, was an eternal sadness, like he'd lost his parents all over again. Even when Aunt Petunia ordered him to get the table and chairs ready for their party, Harry gritted his teeth and wordlessly worked, silent as he was at school.
Rage didn't even begin to describe the volcano brewing inside him. His skin almost felt charged, as if he wore emotions on his body rather than his sleeve. He wished to get revenge, whatever way he could, but with his relatives forcing him into the cupboard whilst they celebrated, the scenario would probably pass.
Unless—
"Boy, get out here!" Aunt Petunia's voice rang out, and Harry suppressed another yelp.
What do they want now?
He forced down the panic rising in his chest and stood up from the little make-shift bed he slept on in the cupboard's corner. Head bowed to not smack the ceiling, Harry opened the cupboard door and slipped out without a word.
Aunt Petunia's ugly snarl met him, long nose more like a parrot's beak, eyes just as piercing as an owl at midnight. Perfume, the toxic kind, radiated from her armpit-like smells.
"We need you to answer something. Come here. Now."
When Harry moved a fraction too late, Aunt Petunia clamped a hand onto his upper arm and pulled him across the floor. Though Harry was out of the cupboard's stifling dust, he had now entered the fiery gauntlet of his relatives and their questions.
The living room was sparse but tidy, thanks to Harry of course. A sofa near the door Harry was pushed through, with a cream chandelier casting light across a dining table fit for three.
Harry, of course, never ate with the family.
Harry was dragged to the room's centre, Aunt Petunia breathing down his neck with her grip as firm as ever. Harry knew he'd get a bruise there—another one to add to the tally.
Like policemen interrogating a suspect in those crime flicks his uncle watched, Vernon and Dudley glared at him with slitted eyes. Both breathed heavily, and Harry half expected their ears to steam given how red their faces were.
"Answer me this, boy," Vernon said, huffing and puffing the words like a wolf in a certain nursery rhyme. "My Dudley told me you tried to punch him. Now you listen hear boy—we feed you, we clothe you, and now you punch our son? Is that how you repay us?" His uncle was shouting by the end, voice crackling the living room, with threats of thunderous smacks unspoken. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
Harry cowered, lip trembling, but all that crashed his mind were images of Dudley ripping up his closest secret. Dudley's fat fingers fiercely tearing up the moving image of his parents, such that they moved no more.
Truly dead, now and forever. And Harry would never feel that kind of love again.
And something inside Harry just snapped. Something deep within his core, perhaps so deep it was as of yet untapped. But the embarrassment and anger and pain all culminated in a bucket that drew from the well of that anger.
A crack seized the air. Thunderous, overtaking all of Harry's senses, a heady smell infusing with the air, and he closed his eyes, clamped them shut, just as the sound of glass shattering pierced his ears.
When he opened his eyes again, Uncle Vernon was still at the table. But his head was slumped, half the dining table chandelier crowning his head in golden glass. And blood slipped down his beady right cheek, a single drop to his chin, before it fell without warning.
Harry was mortified beyond anything. He didn't know what had happened, was completely in the dark, but he hadn't wanted to injure his uncle. He hadn't wished to hurt him the same way he hurt Harry.
Harry shivered, fearful of himself more than anyone else, and his breath came in pants, slight dizziness tingling his body.
"You've killed him," Aunt Petunia shrieked, rushing to her husband, but Uncle Vernon still moved, legs twitching and shoulders rotating to face Harry.
"I've had it in with you, boy," his uncle growled. "I don't care what any of them freaks say, but I'm taking you where you should've been all along."
An image flashed in Harry's mind. Of his uncle's words a few years ago, when Harry was six, after he accidently spilled a cup of tea he'd been serving.
Aunt Petunia had screamed at him, but Uncle Vernon was silent as a snake hunting prey. His smile was predatory, feral, and then he'd hissed—
"Freaks like you don't deserve a home. You deserve to be in one of them orphanages, boy, with all the other worthless freaks. You ever mess up—and I'll see to it that you join them."
With peril sinking into every bone in his body, Harry realised that the orphanage, where the rest of the worthless freaks were—that's where they were taking him next.
And the worst part—Harry believed, after injuring his uncle, that he actually deserved it.
"Hermione, my love, my sweetheart, the pride of my life, my loveliest daughter in the world, the star of my sky, do I have permission to speak to you?"
Hermione giggled at Daddy's antics. Though it was the middle of November, with temperatures on a downward spiral towards a frosty Christmas, Hermione perched on the garden swing, one of two hung by a thick rope attached to a rusting frame that creaked if Hermione swung too high.
Hermione, scared of heights despite being a big girl, never ventured too far from the ground at the request of Mummy. The second swing was usually occupied by one of her parents, since the other child they wished to have didn't exist.
And Hermione didn't want them to bring another one either, if it meant the school-time bullying would snake its way into her only safe haven in the world.
Cold attempted to freeze her body, but a thick coat as well as her father's warmth encircled her with a protective embrace of love. Thankfully, the fever had gone, and since it was a Saturday, she didn't have to deal with Niall and his shenanigans. She gripped onto the swing's rope, the texture nipping her palms like the beak of an exotic parrot.
"You have my permission," Hermione said, pointing towards the second swing. "You can sit there, Daddy."
Daddy pouted. "Do I have to? It's awfully cold out here, princess, and that swing has got icicles like teeth. Look at it!"
But Hermione was adamant. She mock-glared at Daddy—the same way that Mummy sometimes did when she was angry with him—and he relented easily, plopping himself onto the swing and holding onto the sides with red-tinged fingers.
Daddy always carried a musky scent around him, like a kind of fantastical aura, and Hermione could breathe in its warmth even now.
Instead of speaking, Hermione merely drank in the moment. Daddy beside her, the garden fence securing them within the perimeters of Hermione's haven, all whilst snow danced around them in the symphony of the wind. Even the cold, which Hermione usually didn't like, was a companion alongside Daddy.
"You know how we got this swing, princess?" Daddy asked. "The background story, I mean."
Hermione glanced at him, curiosity brimming. She was, if anything, a stickler for stories. She shook her head. "How did you get it, Daddy?"
"We bought this house a few months before you were born. Your mother and I—well, we never much cared for theatrics. We lived in one of those studio flats, you know the ones with not much space and the kitchen to one side of the telly. One of those."
"Like what Aunty Emma lives in?"
Aunty Emma hadn't visited them in a long time since she was in America now. But from what information Mummy received in her periodic letters to London, it seemed Hermione's aunt was shacking up in all sorts of strange places whilst pursuing her musical dream across the fifty united states.
"Yep, exactly like what your Aunt Emma lives in," Daddy said, politely popping Hermione's bubble of thoughts. "When Cathy was having you, princess, we knew we needed a bigger house. And so we pooled all the savings we had from the practice and managed to buy this place when prices were down because of economic…anyway..." Daddy trailed off.
Hermione nodded, but her curiosity wasn't sated just yet. She needed to know about the swings, and she asked Daddy—politely, of course, since she loved Daddy—to get to the point.
"Point being," Daddy said with a smile, "that I was the one who built this swing, with my own two hands. These fingers aren't just useful for fixing teeth, I'll have you know." Daddy pointed above Hermione's head, to a rusty bolt that connected the swing mechanism to the browning frame. "See there, that bolt fell on my head at least a hundred times. I'm sure I've even got a bump on my head that's never disappeared."
"Do you think Miss Healey can fix it with some ice?" Miss Healey being the school nurse, and her blocks of ice worked such wonders Hermione once thought the nurse had transported it from an alternate reality where bumps didn't exist.
"Nope," Daddy said, scratching the top of his skull. "These bumps are here to stay, unfortunately. At least I managed to get the swings done by the time you were born."
Hermione swung her legs for a second, toes still not reaching the ground despite being a big girl now. She stretched them a little, but a pesky inch separated her from ultimate glory, and she wouldn't cheat a victory for anything.
Then something struck her mind, and her bubble of thoughts reopened.
"If you made this swing before I was born, why did you make two?"
"Well…that's the question, isn't it?" Daddy said. "I…I know Mummy already spoke to you about this, but…we always wanted two children. It was, well, a dream of ours. And, when you came into our lives, we were happier than anything in the world. You know how happy you felt when Mummy got that brand-new edition of The Hobbit?"
Hermione nodded wordlessly, sensing where Daddy was heading.
"Mummy was happier than even that. And she wanted to feel that happiness again, but she couldn't. And we always wanted you to have someone to play with, a brother or sister."
"But I don't need one," Hermione said, struggling to keep her voice under control. Trying to feign nonchalance when her little heart picked up the pace, along with the surrounding wind. "I have books. And I'm a big girl now, so I can read all Mummy's books. I don't need anyone else."
Hermione, in her own mind, thought she sounded awfully smart.
Oh, how wrong she was.
"Hermione, we know what's been happening at school," Daddy said. "We know that…that you wish for a friend, and we want to give it to you. If only—if only you'll let us try. You're a big girl now, Hermione, and big girls give things a chance even if—if at first it seems unlikely."
"That's easy for you to say," Hermione squeezed out, resisting the urge to scream like she had when Mummy first revealed to her their intention to adopt. "You already have Mummy as a friend. I have…" Hermione gulped, lowered her gaze to the pale snow, before letting the words mist the air. "I have no one."
"I know, princess," Daddy said, standing from the swing. He approached Hermione, tentatively placed his warm fingers in her cold ones, and squeezed them in comfort. "Look at me, princess, please." Hermione met his chocolate eyes, oozing and dripping with such a care and concern that her heart almost stopped. "Your Mummy was the same as you, scared, and then she let someone in—that was me—and now she has more friends than she can count, and a beautiful princess too."
Hermione smiled at that, despite all the fears threatening to bubble inside her.
"Will you let someone in, too?" Daddy asked, eyes glistening in the hues of sunlight crossing the journey from sky to ground to light a path forward for Hermione.
She decided to take it.
"I will," she said, and the smile Daddy gave her was totally, totally worth it.
If Harry had to pick his best guess for a haunted house, Young Foundations Orphanage would certainly fit the bill nicely. The building itself was creepily large, with these curved sides that looked like they dropped right out of a horror movie, and Harry had seen some truly nauseating sights whilst inside his cupboard under the stairs, so that was saying something. The outside gate was high and crow-like black, at least double Harry's height, and resembled more a prison gate than a place for children to stay. Inside, Harry spotted a gravel path, dirty and hidden mostly by snow, with a derelict playground fielding rusty climbing frames, again covered with sickly white.
Harry shivered as he stood with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon outside the gate. It had rained earlier in the day, causing pavements to become slippery with water floating on the ice. Harry's thin shoes, more rag than sole, were barely enough to keep him upright, and his balance teetered on a sharp knife edge with each step he took.
He felt sick, smelt his own stomach acid bubbling within him, and a sour sting cut up slices of his lower throat. He blinked back the tears, realising that he was a real freak. A freak that had almost killed his uncle, and now he was going to the place where real freaks stayed. The place he'd been destined for all along.
Uncle Vernon pushed him through the now-open gate, and Harry's legs buckled. His knees hit the ground, but Aunt Petunia dragged him up again before anyone could see, and before the pain could properly register within Harry's legs. With a hand squeezing his arm, and squeezing hard, his aunt led the three of them towards the orphanage's front entrance.
Dudley, to save him from viewing Harry join the rest of the freaks, was spending the day with Aunt Marge.
Harry sent a glance back, just a little glance at the gate, wondering if there was a way for him to escape. But with the biting cold, the whirling winds, and the utter hopelessness that lay in his old house, Harry knew there was no going back. No return to his previous life that, as fraught with fright as it was, held an unmoving tide that proved far more preferable than the rough waves of the foster system.
All his belongings had been chucked in a small rucksack that now covered Harry's back, with the pocket watch being Harry's only personal addition. The backpack was light, bumping along his spine as he walked, the contents perhaps a representation of Harry himself—mostly hollow on the inside.
Harry trudged along, through the front door of the orphanage, and waited as his aunt and uncle spoke to the receptionist. Harry didn't look at them once, instead waiting whilst harsh words were spoken and warnings were given. Aunt Petunia muttered something about freaks, and Uncle Vernon mentioned that those freaks would never find Harry here. A scratch alerted Harry to a paper being signed, sending Harry off to a perilous future as a certified freak, in the place where all the freaks were gathered to fester in their punishment.
Without another word, without so much as a sound, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon strode out of the orphanage, heads held high and proud, closing the glass door behind them and heading to the gate. Harry stared after them, hoping with every fibre of his being that they turned around for just one second, for just one, singular, granular moment.
But they didn't.
Leaving little Harry Potter truly alone for the first time in his existence.
A/N: So there you have it, Swings & Memories is born. Hope you all enjoyed it, and not to worry, this fic is complete, and edited. Just a quick proofread before posting each weekly chapter, so you don't have to worry about anything being abandoned. Hope you all enjoyed, and I hope you all love this fic as much as I loved writing it. I wanted to capture the essence of two children finding their true selves amongst the problems that life can bring, as well as expand on what I believe the Granger parents were like, and this is the fic that was birthed from those thoughts.
Hopefully, it grows to be something you all love.
Until Saturday,
MustFinishProcrastinating
